NONPF 39th Annual Meeting
Nurse practitioners are poised on the front lines to confront health issues in all populations. Nurse practitioner programs should be challenged to teach innovative strategies to identify and address health issues. An example would include school-aged athletes, who are at an increased risk for serious head injuries due to the vulnerability of their developing brains (Field, 2003). The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 1.6 - 3.8 million concussions from sports-related injuries occur annually (CDC, 2009). For educational purposes, parents and athletes in Alabama are required to sign a concussion information form, which provides information on head injuries. A family nurse practitioner performed a small pilot study to assess the effectiveness of this form. The study revealed that the majority of parents and athletes were not reading the form. As a result of these findings, an educational video was produced that will be included in a toolkit to be distributed to schools in Alabama. The toolkit will equip schools with the proper tools to educate athletes and their parents on the recognition and proper management of head injuries.
Key words: concussion, second impact syndrome, head injuries, high school athletes
